The Internet of Things (IoT) concept refers to the interconnection of embedded components and sensors that provide an infrastructure for connectivity of devices, systems, and services. Due to the ubiquitous nature of connected objects in the IoT paradigm, an unprecedented number of devices are expected to be connected to the Internet.
Recent technological advances have brought about an amazing change in the landscape for sensors. The sensors now exist in greater numbers than ever before and have become very inexpensive to build and purchase. In addition, it has become very easy to use sensors for a great number of different applications, such as measurement of temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, GPS, water level, water presence, electrical current/voltage, light, presence, etc. There is almost nothing today that cannot be measured with a simple and cheap sensor.
Many companies are now providing the infrastructure and services to form a connection to the various IoT components and sensors that have now been embedded in various devices. However, known solutions are very rigid with respect to the implementation of the infrastructure to handle acquisition of data from the components and data, and are limited to inflexible, pre-configured data acquisition modalities from the sensors.
Another problem with the existing solutions is that they are implemented using proprietary systems and protocols. Using these proprietary systems forces a customer to essentially throw away much of the investment in the customer's existing IT infrastructure and applications, since the customer is often required to use the systems/applications provided by the vendor for many functions.
Yet another problem with the existing solutions is that they often force a functional separation between the technology that directly interfaces with the IoT components and sensors (referred to hereinafter as “operations technology”) and the technology that is used to process the data gathered from the components and components/sensors (referred to hereinafter as “information technology”). Examples of operations technology components include Emergency Shutdown (ESD) systems and Supervisor Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Examples of information technology components include Analytics systems and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved method and mechanism to provide a solution that addresses these and other problems with the current solutions.